Who the Hell is Boback?
I get this question now and then. Boback (pronounced Bo-Back) is a nick name I got many years ago while in college learning computer programming. Back then we did it with computer cards. Anybody remember them?
We had to submit our programs to the operations class to get the programs run on the computer. The next class session our programs were returned with our printouts telling us how our program worked. Back in the days before PCs, programmers didn't get their hands on the computers very often. They just wrote the code and the Computer Operators ran the jobs. In order to identify our decks we wrote the first 6 letters of our last name plus a 2 digit number with magic marker on the top to that our deck of cards (usually 100+ cards).
My problem is that my last name is Ackerman and we had an Ackers. Too similar. So I decided to put "BOBACK" for BOB ACKerman on the top plus the project number (BOBACK01, BOBACK02, etc.). Now my projects would not be confused with Ackers' projects.
When our projects were returned the next class night one of the students got the job of passing out the card decks and reports. While passing out the card decks, she said, "Who the hell is Boback?" After a couple of times calling for Boback I finally realized that it was me she was talking about.
And the name stuck.
Boback
P.S. I still have people calling me "Sarge" but that was another life.
We had to submit our programs to the operations class to get the programs run on the computer. The next class session our programs were returned with our printouts telling us how our program worked. Back in the days before PCs, programmers didn't get their hands on the computers very often. They just wrote the code and the Computer Operators ran the jobs. In order to identify our decks we wrote the first 6 letters of our last name plus a 2 digit number with magic marker on the top to that our deck of cards (usually 100+ cards).
My problem is that my last name is Ackerman and we had an Ackers. Too similar. So I decided to put "BOBACK" for BOB ACKerman on the top plus the project number (BOBACK01, BOBACK02, etc.). Now my projects would not be confused with Ackers' projects.
When our projects were returned the next class night one of the students got the job of passing out the card decks and reports. While passing out the card decks, she said, "Who the hell is Boback?" After a couple of times calling for Boback I finally realized that it was me she was talking about.
And the name stuck.
Boback
P.S. I still have people calling me "Sarge" but that was another life.
posted by Bob Ackerman at 8:18 PM
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